Amber

They both gave up too soon. Going home was going to be an option, and if it wasn’t yet, she’d make it one.

Regardless she didn’t know how. Not that not knowing had ever stopped her before but it would take time.

Harper broke the silence. “Incorporating the stone into the Hub is pretty expensive, so I’ll have something to spend my power on for a while. That being said, I burn through food a lot faster than I did back home this way. According to my fixture, it’s because I’m converting reserves into fortification points. So if we want a larger and safer base, it’s going to cost us food.”

Just like that she’d said it us. Amber fully agreed with joining up. Safety in numbers and all that. But no one had actually said that’s what they were going to do.

“Okay hun, don’t sweat it. Earlier, did ya say your magic compels you to spend it?.” It wouldn’t do to hide anyone’s weaknesses. Amber had seen negotiation like that. Better for one sale but acid to a lasting relationship. When you want the same person to show up again and again, being upfront about drawbacks was everything.

“Basically yeah. It feels like a big ball of fear. Unready, unprepared, not enough given a voice and just magnified so big it takes up my whole mind. It’s not an exaggeration to call it like PTSD or a panic attack. I’ve uh had both.” Harper swallowed. The courage to speak of her fears was all she needed.

“Well, I don’t mind none.” Amber flexed her free arm. “Look at these muscles I’ll consider you being fully fed as a personal challenge.”

Looking into Harper’s eyes, Amber’s focus was on Mathew. He’d been pretty cool so far but some people are snakes and he was hard to read. All Amber could tell was that he was putting up a front.

“My magic is like that too,” Mathew spoke up. “So I understand. And eh, you’ve fed and housed a couple of strangers. If anyone isn’t pulling their weight yet, it for sure isn’t you.”

“Ain’t me either.” Amber gave Mathew a playful glare. Behind it she watched for anything untrustworthy. She watched him return an lopsided smile. He passed this time.

He stood. Bone plates showed through rips in his dress shirt. “Then I better contribute something. I’ll scout some and see what I can bring back.” Mathew’s right forearm showed clear from his dress shirt as he put his hand on the door. Torn out muscle and blood vestals surrounded a hole between the two bone plates of his forearm.

What would Grandma think of me being so uncharitable? A touch of shame lit her cheeks.

“I was hoping to go for a stroll. Would ya mind keeping me company?” Amber asked. Make it sound like a request for help. No need to hurt a hurt man’s ego. Grandma would be proud. But there was no way she was just going to stand by and let him scout alone.

“You be okay alone for a bit, hun?” Amber asked.

“Yes.” Harper fidgeted. “I didn’t mean it like that, by the way.”

“We know.” Amber winked.

Clambering back to her feet Amber wished she could carry her pillow and her spear at the same time. It really wasn’t a one-handed spear, and she needed a free second hand to use it correctly.

Pft. Free hand.

Channeling a bit of her magic, the pillow floated of its own accord, following her. There hands-free. The brightly shining sun of Texas in her bosom didn’t diminish noticeably from the effort.

Amber followed after him.

“What is that?” He gestured to the floating bag.

“What I want it to be.” Amber’s voice said, duh. Being nice to his ego only went so far injured or not.

Mathew smiled. “Well, it’s your stroll. Where are we going?”

Being on the south side of a mountain made it real darn sunny here. The stone here was uncomfortably hot under her bare feet. Where the mountain ended, a forest took over. None of em looked like pine or cedar trees. Marking some of the bigger trees and big clearing that she guessed was a big pond, Amber pointed. “That way. You much of a hiker?”

“Only the concrete jungle”

Amber nodded.

They made their way down the slope. Amber did her best to keep her cursing under her breath every time her foot found a pointy edge or got toasted as she found another place for the next foot.

Getting to the loam at the edge of the slope was a chore Mathew stayed quiet for.

Wiggling her toes into the cool dirt was just nice. When she looked up, Mathew had a weird look on his stubbly face.

“Alright, city boy. You follow my lead. We go in quiet and try to learn something along the way.” Amber shifted into a predator mindset.

Mathew snorted. “Boys,” She muttered quietly.

Stalking and observing Amber abused her new scanning function.

[Free scan 2

Valid targets for skill type, scan, is highlighted in vision. Reduced cost to scan valid targets, scan valid targets as a skill level 1/2 this skills levels higher]

At first, Amber didn’t think this would be that useful because it seemed like everything was highlighted. After Harper started talking about intelectus, Amber had thought to ask her free scan intelectus real nice to filter the information some.

Bugs and dangerous plants popped into focus. Noting them for later, she tried to get a feel for what things were. Some of the trees had odd knots in em’. As she watched, a squirrel-like critter called a Jeks’eg darted into one. Critter nest it was.

Just like that, they kept moving. Cataloging the alien planet as she went shopping. Jeks’eg could work if nothing else came along but something bigger would go a long way.

Walking through the loam and occasional patch of moss for the sake of her feet, Amber found it real peculiar that they hadn’t run across a trail yet. Mighty suspicious. Before she voiced anything, the yowling of some cats started up. Reminded her of a trailer park her family had stayed at once. The feral cats would posture, each and every one of em, like a mean girl. Most of the time to fight other times to announce something to fight over. It wouldn’t be much to remember but her window had felt paper-thin as the sound carried her sweet dreams away.

“Cats?” Mathew asked.

Pressing her finger to her lips, she gave him a good glare for breaking hunting protocol. No discipline at all, apparently.

Sneaking in closer to the sound, they squeezed through some gaps in the trees. Not that you couldn’t go through them, just it’d be one hell of a racket. Poking through the other side, her skill highlighted two groups of beasts.

Hairless hide carved with deep wrinkles covered compact slabs of muscle. The Drull had six leg-arms. They stuck out of the monster’s torso with elbows coming up before back down. Cricket-like limbs on a mammal was more than enough to give her the heebie-jeebies. Their throats bloated and shrunk as she heard a deep tone. A troupe of seven faced off against another pack from the high ground of a man-sized bluff.

Underneath them were cats with blade arms. Popping out from just behind the shoulder joints, the arm would lay back across the body and fold back nearly to the cat’s head. Lashing forward threateningly, the pony-sized ginger cat gouged the razor edge claw that made up almost all the last arm segment. Amber scanned for more details.

[Field cat

These here, are more physically powerful than their domestic cousins, the field cat is excellent at clearing territory from pests. They grow big like pigs do when they have a boatload of food. So the small pest critters get eaten up by the young and the big pests get eaten up by the older ones. Species is likely to generate an alpha if left poorly attended. Whatever that means.

Increase scan level and I can find you more info]

Posturing and being all-around nuisances the beasts argued for several minutes. If those beasts weren’t so dangerous looking, it’d be funny. During this time, Amber saw her first trails. Two of em running parallel, one across the bluff and the other under. This looked like some type of territory conflict that had been long settled. Sure enough, a deep sound that vibrated the ground ran rippled through the trees above the bluff.

As one, the Drull turned and sprinted away through the woods. Pretty anti-climatic after all that noise. Kinda nice to know that even monsters here acted with self-preservation. Still, Amber was hoping one of those Field Cats would’ve died. The spotted one would have made some nice shoes. Speaking of the Field Cats just sat down and started preening like the divas they were.

Oh well, Amber signaled Mathew and they backed away stealthily. More information would help them all out and all, and her personal mission to find decent footwear would have to wait.

Mathew waited quietly for her. It was nice working with a man who could listen.

Together they made a loop and worked their way back around to the mountain base that was their camp. Navigating a forest wasn’t all too hard after you got the knack for it. Everywhere you went, you just had to make some landmarks. Then make smaller landmarks between em. Eventually, it is so natural ya don’t even think ’bout it.

It took longer to arrive at the pond than she’d thought it would take but eventually, a trail showed up. Following it brought the group to the local watering hole. As they arrived, a tangle of vines writhed at the muddy bank. A sharp-toothed maw hidden inside the tangle lifted from the water and it bounded into the trees. No matter how much she wanted shoes, a crazy land octopus was off the list of viable foot-ware.

Signs of life were all over the place. Footprints littered the muddy bank. The one that drew her attention most readily was like grizzly print but 90% claws. Other than that, she finally had signs of normal herbivores and a truckload of them. If she wasn’t on an alien world with blade-armed cats, she’d have called em whitetail tracks. Following after, the herd drew them closer to the Hub, so if it didn’t pan out, at least they’d be closer to home.

Tracking through the plants was a massive pain. They had unnatural durability and didn’t wilt or deform that much from even a passing herd. Not to mention she still didn’t have shoes and to track them she couldn’t just go wherever she wanted. Tapping her on the shoulder again, Mathew got her attention.

He took his dress shoes off and then his socks and handed them to her.

“That’s sweet and all but they are way too big plus you need shoes yourself, big guy.”

“We can talk now?”

“Uh, yeah.” Darnit, I'm supposed to be a good example.

“Stuff plant fibers into the toes as filler and put them on. I have three times the durability a normal person has. My feet can take the abuse. You’re holding us back.” He pushed them at her again.

Stuffing plants angrily into the oversized shoes, Amber handed back the days old socks. A lady had to have standards.

Stepping out with her clown shoes was like walking on a cloud. Maybe it was an excellent idea, she admitted.

“No more holding out on me, 'kay?” Amber flashed a grateful smile.

One thing to say for comfort is that it lets a more full focus take hold. As they continued following the clues left behind, a notification popped up.

[Tracking 1

Helps ya track better. We will try to integrate this into free scan.]

Huh. The notifications got a bit different than before. Not that she minded exactly. Just something to try to figure out. Later though, for now we hunt.

Enhanced tracking vision began highlighting the signs of mass travel. Nothing she wouldn’t find eventually but it sure did save time. In short order, she led them to the herd. Green deer with lime stripes down their backs stood around grazing as a herd. The bucks were all in a group with the does and cute fawns. Odd but okay. Looking closer, she saw the bucks’ antlers ended in three points. In the middle was an orange ball, of which the skin was stretched tightly.

[Bright tail deer

Grenade horns and a flash-bang tail. Like a skunk but instead of stink a raised tail means temporary blindness. Pseudo monster level. Oh hey, power synergy, you can better track any animal you’ve scanned. Uhg and apparently natives call being shot down being “bright tailed”]

Turning to Mathew, she got close and gave him the come hither gesture, the functional one, not the suggestive one. He dutifully bent down so she could whisper in his ear. “Let’s hunt one if we can.”

He nodded. And moved closer to whisper in her ear. “My specialty is ambush. Can you get them to spook past me… hold on can you feel that? Something else is here.”

Good instincts is what kept you alive. Even without all the strange things becoming real, she’d have given gut feeling a lot of credit. As it was now, alarm bells were ringing a fire station on call out. Channeling a drop of the Texas sunlight into her free scan, Amber gave the space another look.

There it was clear as day up in the tree. The Field cat was the size of a car and grew twice as many blade arms as the others.

[Alpha Field cat

Oooo, Sweet sweet info. Hidden information about something called the Alpha spectrum. After absorbing it the cat becomes empowered by it. Alphas can mutate in different ways and have unique powers. More likely to have magic. This specific Alpha is mostly lazy but kills for fun when it gets bored. Our old glock wouldn’t even be enough without a brain shot.]

Moving slowly, Amber pointed to the Alpha cat. Mathew stepped in front and readied his Ripper. Gratitude mixed with shame at the thought of using him to get away. Thankfully the Alpha was focused on the herd. Its balance in the trees looked impossible for all its bulk. But the reinforced branches didn’t seem to have trouble holding up the massive beast.

They waited unsure of what to do, just knowing that gathering attention of the king of this land was wishing for interesting times.

One of the deer got spooked, it bleated and all the deer heads popped up in unison. Alpha cat poured itself to the ground in the middle of the herd with liquid grace. An explosion of motion erupted. Like fish swimming around a shark, the herd split around the giant cat. One buck that the Alpha cat landed beside lashed out with its antlers. A force field expanded from the points, so the explosion was directed right into the monster’s flank.

Sweeping through the buck as surely as light cuts through darkness, the buck was separated diagonally across its chest. Antlered head tumbled down with one leg while the rest of the body fell over. With a throaty chuckle, the Alpha cat picked up the larger chunk and bounded back into the trees. Flashes of light from the raised tails of the deer provided clear direction more than it seemed to dissuade the monster.

Standing paralyzed for a bit, Mathew suddenly said they were in the clear. He was too damn confident for Ambers liking. Give the forest a few minutes to cool off. But the sooner they got back inside a fortification the better. Freeing her hands up and floating the pillow again, Amber moved to look at the cat’s discarded trophy.

Cut so straight and cleanly through all the bone it had to be magical, right?

“Take?” Mathew asked.

“Yeah.” Amber bit her lip. “I just don’t want anything following this to us.”

Nodding, he opened his jaws. The zebra striped teeth began to glow purple and a dark cloud poured forth from his mouth, smothering what remained of the deer. A half-minute later, he withdrew the power leaving the partial carcass clean of blood and anything else drippy. Clenched jaw he shouldered the burden. “Let’s go.”

Amber took the lead and navigated them back home. The dress shoes really helped her pick up speed and getting out of this forest while that giant cat was still full was priority number one. Watching the Alpha attack made it clear this was the monster to other monsters. With that wind to their backs the duo broke their way out of the woods and onto the sloped stone.

Hours of walking through the forest had left the sky as a rapidly dimming blotch in the horizon. Even being conditioned to work a farm from dawn to dusk wouldn’t keep the inevitable exhaustion from arriving. Her clomping steps were only lightened by the glowing sight of the Hub.

Even before she knocked on the door, Harper burst out and hugged her. “I was so worried I was alone again. Thank you for coming back. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh, you too, Mathew. But no hugs with dead animals.”

Re-entering the Hub showcased changes. First, the whole thing had a roof of stone pulled over it. Second, it seemed larger at least several feet larger on all sides. The last significant change was a lamp just glowing away by magic.

“Wow, I knew your sword was fancy but that is amazing!” Harper’s excitement overrode her reservations.

“No, it wasn’t mine. We are just scavengers.” Mathew grimaced. “This is the casual leftovers of the local boss monster. As we are, we don’t stand a chance.”